Blood Count

CHAPTER 32

I have to hurry,” said Lionel Hutchison. He wasn’t wearing an overcoat, and he still had his velvet slippers on his feet. “Is Celestina here?”

“She left earlier. Said she was going to her sister’s place.”

“Thank God. But I have to hurry. She might come back to the apartment and find me out. The dog is all alone. She wouldn’t like that. Celestina, I mean,” he said.

I tried to get him to sit down. I tried to get him to drink something, but he was distracted. Something was wrong. He was agitated and almost incoherent. I asked what the matter was. He looked around the room, frantic. Had to hurry, he said. Had something to tell me, but he had to get back, the dog was alone, he said over and over. Celestina would be mad that he left Ed, the dog, alone.

Lionel started to talk about ghosts. Ghosts in the building, he said. He was shivering. A waiter got him a cup of hot coffee. He held it between his hands, and for the second time he said he had to talk to me. Ghosts, he said. Pale faces.

I got him to sit down. The club was emptying out fast now.

“It’s not right,” he said. “It wasn’t right.”

“What wasn’t?”

“What he did.”

“Who?”

“I have to go.” He put his coffee on the bar. “Sorry about this.”

“Did you take anything before you left?”

“I don’t remember. Sleeping pill. Maybe. Not sure.” He was rambling.

“You need some warm clothes,” I said.

“I like the cold,” he said, but he was shaking now. “Like it.”

“I’ll take you home.”

“Something to tell you.”

“I’ll take you home and we can talk on the way.”

He looked around the club and saw Carver Lennox who waved. Hutchison shrank back. He seemed afraid.

“What is it?”

“I’ll tell you when we leave here. It’s important,” Hutchison said. “There’s something I have to tell you.”

“About the ghosts?”

“About Marianna Simonova. I have to tell you something about her. Nobody knows. I know. Only I. I knew her in a way nobody else did.”

“I understand.”

“You don’t understand,” he said. “Damn dog. I can’t wait. I have to go back for the blasted damn dog. Son of a bitch. Literally.”

“Or I could come in the morning? I could put you in a taxi and come over in the morning. Lionel?”

It was a mistake. I saw he wouldn’t ask again, wouldn’t beg for my time.

“Just wait here,” I said. “I’ll get my car keys.”

As I went to find my coat and my car keys, I knew I was too drunk to drive, and all I really wanted was to stay with Lily. Be with her. Dance with her. But Lionel had looked dazed. Maybe his wife had been right; maybe he did wander in his sleep.

I got my coat, went to look for Lily, told her I’d be back as fast as I could, and then discovered that Lionel had already gone. Axel said that one of the guests who was leaving, said he’d give Lionel a lift home. “Which guest?”

Axel didn’t know. “How did he seem?” I said.

“He seemed a little nuts at first, then he was calm. He seemed fine when he left,” Axel said.

I found Lily, I told her a little about Lionel, but not all. Just told her he had dropped by and somebody had driven him home. We got another drink and went to listen to the pianist who had resumed playing after the band left. He was playing “Someone to Watch Over Me.” It was the first song I’d heard with Lily, at Bradley’s.

So we danced in the almost empty club, for an hour-I lost all sense of time-then sat and whispered and danced some more together. I didn’t want to let go of her. I thought if I held on, she’d stay forever.

I forgot about Lionel Hutchison. I would spend real time with him in the morning, I told myself, I’d sit in the freezing cold, if he wanted, smoke with him, hear him out, but for now I just let myself forget. I didn’t think about him again, not for hours, two, three, four hours, there wasn’t much sleeping that night, so I didn’t think about him again until after I woke up in Lily’s bed.